He wants employees to instead refer to shoppers as "members," which is his term for customers who are enrolled in Sears' Shop Your Way rewards program.

One of the words on it was "consumer." The stakes were high.

If any of those words were uttered in front of Lampert, the two presenters would "get shredded" by the CEO, whose frequent tirades had fostered a climate of fear among the company's most senior managers, said another person — this one a former vice president.

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One morning in late 2015, on Sears' vast Illinois campus, more than a dozen employees huddled in a videoconference room on a floor dubbed "B6." There, two mid-level employees were preparing a presentation for the CEO, Eddie Lampert, when their boss rushed in with some last-minute advice. "He looks at the presenters and says, 'Do not say these words to that guy,'" according to a former Sears executive who described the meeting to Business Insider.